Don't you dare defy my will!" Harry growled as he glared intensely at the pencil before him. The young web-slinger was currently sitting on his bed in his room, his arm stretched out and his hand pointing at the pencil on his desk. "Wingardium leviosa!" He grunted out the levitation charm on what he believed to be his fifteenth attempt this hour, thrusting his hand forward.
The pencil didn't even twitch.
"Goddamn!" Harry groaned as he allowed himself to fall back on his bed. "Why the hell isn't it working?" He whispered to himself. It was a simple levitation charm, a charm that he had done countless times in his previous life. Harry knew that wandless magic was possible, not all wizards could do it, but he did know of some that could. He had seen Professor McGonagall open a door with the barest of waves, he had seen Professor Dumbledore extinguish several candles and summon things to his hand without even the smallest of physical movement. They were both highly powerful magic users, but Harry liked to think that he was a pretty decent wizard. Heck, he had managed to produce a patronus charm at the age of thirteen, a charm that most older wizards struggled with. Admittedly, he wasn't the best at the theory of magic, but that was mostly due to not trying his best then, in large part due to his friends and upbringing. But when it came to practical magic, he was always in the top five in learning spells.
"If runes work then why can't spells work?" He wondered out loud. "The runes are working, my webshooters prove that. Why isn't regular magic working?"
Harry knew that his wand in his last life was merely a way to focus his magic into a specific spell, logically he didn't need a wand to do magic as evidenced by his feats of accidental magic from when he was a small child, and he had had quite a few feats, how could he not with all the 'loving care' he had received from the Dursley's? He had turned the colour of people's hair, summoned things to himself, disappeared from one place and reappeared in another like when he somehow ended up on the roof of a school building.
'Magic comes from my core,' He thought to himself. 'All wizards and witches have a core, that's where we draw our magic from. The wand channels the magic into spells. If Dumbledore could do it without a wand then he's learnt a way to bypass the need for a wand. But how? Is he secretly hiding some other sort of magical focus like a wristband, bracelet, or something else? No, even if that is something Dumbledore might do, I don't think that that's the case. They're both old, so maybe they just had to spend years of practising without a wand, though it is possible that the level of power they have could affect the ease with which they can perform their spells. Hmm, if my runes weren't working then I would have been very worried about losing my magic completely. Though I don't think that can happen, at least I hope it can't. I know that there are ways to lose your magic, like with the goblet of fire. Not to mention if you fuck up a ritual. I've never done a ritual though, it's not like I have the magical ingredients necessary for any besides my...' A gasp escaped Harry's lips as he quickly sat up, one word ringing loudly in his head.
"Blood." He whispered before he stood up and rushed over to his desk. He picked up his phone before dialling Peter's number. "Pete, you there?" He asked.
"Hi Harry, what's going on?" Peter asked curiously.
"I need you to contact Gwen and meet me at our testing grounds tomorrow," Harry told him. "I want to perform a ritual."
"A what?" Peter asked in a confused voice. "Did you just say a 'ritual'?"
"Yep, the magical kind," Harry nodded even though he knew that Peter couldn't see it. "I'll explain it all when we get there. See you soon." He told him before cutting the call. "You are a mad one, Osborn." He whispered to himself before rushing to his notebook.
"God help me, please," Robbie whispered to himself as he got out of his car, he gulped before gently closing the car door and making sure to lock it, he double-checked it was locked before he started walking straight to the nightclub in front of him. It was a three-storey building that sat in between a Chinese takeaway store and what he would refer to as an 'adult dance club'. Robbie, feeling out of place in his brown slacks, black shoes, grey shirt and grey tie, walked up to the two muscular security guards standing outside of the door.
"Can we help you?" One of them asked in a bored voice.
"I...I was sent here for a meeting with...um..." Robbie began but was quickly interrupted.
"Inside, third floor." The other security guard grunted as the first opened the door for him.
"Oh," Robbie blinked. "Well...thank you," He said quietly before walking into the building and finding himself to be immediately assaulted by flashing bright lights of various colours and an unhealthy level of noise that was apparently supposed to be music. The area in front of him was filled with a lot of young people jumping up and down in tune to what Robbie refused to count as actual music. Some of them were drinking, some smoking, and others even openly injecting drugs into their veins. Smoke machines placed around the room made it harder to see anything, especially when combined with the bright flashing lights.
Robbie fought off the headache he was feeling from simply being here and pushed on, making his way up to the second floor. Once he got to the second floor, which looked to be an almost identical copy to the first, he was immediately met by another security guard.
"With me," The guard ordered before walking away without saying another word or even giving Robbie a backwards glance, Robbie blinked before quickly following after the man and exiting through a door on the side of the room that was labelled 'Staff'. Robbie relaxed minutely as he found himself in what appeared to be a nice and simple hallway with red carpets and white walls, the volume of the music was still loud but was at least somewhat dulled by the walls and door behind him. Robbie followed the security guard up another flight of stairs before the guard stopped and pointed to a black door at the end of a hallway that was identical to the previous one.
"Thank you," Robbie said politely before walking down the hall, thankfully it was now quiet enough that he was able to at least think. He stopped by the door, took a deep breath and knocked on it.
"It's open," A familiar voice purred. Robbie gulped, licking his dry lips and then opening the door.
Once inside he took a good look around, the room was dark, even with the fancy-looking chandelier hanging from the centre of the ceiling. The walls were all painted in black and white stripes, on the left was a bar with a variety of drinks on top of it. To the right was a snooker table, a deer's head had been mounted to the wall behind it. There were also several chairs there along with a tall fridge, a large glass table and a large TV that was mounted to the wall. Opposite Robbie was a large and very wide bed with three people resting on top of it.
Two of them were beautiful women dressed in quite revealing clothes, looking more than a bit drunk and quite giddy. But the third person was the entire reason that Robbie was here.
"Lonnie?" Robbie gasped. "Is that you?" Barely recognising him. Lonnie was dressed in heavy black boots, black trousers and a light grey tank top, but his clothes were not what had shocked Robbie. Lonnie's skin was no longer as Robbie remembered it, when they were young his skin was only a shade or two darker than Robbie's own, but now his skin appeared to be snow white in colour. Lonnie's big grin revealed his teeth which were now all sharp and pointy, much like a vampire's. His hair was the same white as his skin, spiked up so hard that it looked like it could be used to stab a man. Lonnie also appeared to be way more muscular than Robbie remembered, it looked like his muscles had muscles.
"Evening Robbie," Lonnie grinned before sitting up. "Excuse me, ladies." He told the two girls before he extracted himself from them and got off the bed. "How are you doing, Robbie?" He asked as he walked over and stopped in front of him. "Can I offer you a drink?" He asked in an amused voice as he looked down at Robbie who barely reached up to his chest.
"I'm fine, thank you," Robbie said, barely managing to keep his voice steady.
"Straight edge, huh?" Lonnie chuckled. "Should have figured, how's work treating you? How's the wife doing?"
"Lonnie, what do you want?" Robbie asked, ignoring his questions.
"What do I want?" Lonnie chuckled. "Robbie, I got damn near everything I want. Money, women, money, multiple businesses, money, respect, power, oh and I forgot to mention money. Heck, I own that club next door. Do you want to go there? I can get you in for free, I recommend Charity, she's a damn natural."
"Lonnie, what do you want?" Robbie repeated impatiently.
"Not up for a bit of small talk, huh?" Lonnie asked with a note of disapproval in his voice. "That's fine, I'll get straight down to business then. I have a job for you."
"I have a job," Robbie replied.
"A comfy one, I know," Lonnie snorted. "But I have a different type of job for you."
"What kind of job?"
"The fun kind."
"The fun kind?"
"The fun kind,"
"Lonnie, what kind of job?"
"The fun kind," Lonnie repeated with a grin. "You see, I got a fella who owes me a bit of money, and he ain't paid up yet. I want you to go to him, I've already found him, because I'm nice like that, and then I want you to take this here gun," He paused to pull out a gun before holding it in front of a shocked Robbie. "And then I want you to shoot him, clear in his stupid head."
"Are you crazy?!" Robbie blurted out, taking a step back.
"Little bit," Lonnie nodded. "Take the gun."
"No," Robbie said quickly. "No, no, I won't do it."
"Yeah, you will," Lonnie told him. "Robbie when Tombstone tells you to do something then you got to do it, that's the way the world works."
"Who the hell is the 'Tombstone'?" Robbie asked, putting all of his strength into not shaking.
"That's me, or at least that's the name I go by these days," Lonnie said, quite proudly. "And I'll tell you right now, Robbie, I earned that name. I earned it with a lot of hard work, you understand? Now, you are going to take this gun and you're going to shoot who I tell you to shoot, or else."
"Or else what?" Robbie asked nervously, sweat pouring down his face.
"You don't seem to understand, Robbie, I know where you live," Tombstone said in a low voice. "I know where your wife lives, I know where your son lives. Your son's future is in my hands, one word and I can have my boys shoot up your place, a different word and I can have all the evidence of your little son's activities shown to the police and have his skinny ass sent to jail. So yeah," Tombstone reached out with one hand and grabbed Robbie by his collar, effortlessly lifting him up into the air. "So, trust me when I say that you will be doing what I say, got it?"
"G...got it," Robbie said in a shaky voice.
"Good boy," Tombstone purred before letting go of Robbie, causing him to fall down to his feet before stumbling backwards and falling on his back. "It's empty," Tombstone explained as he tossed the gun to Robbie. "Tomorrow, a car will show up outside of your house, get in it and one of my boys will give you the ammo you need. Now, I have a pair of ladies to entertain, get lost. Go, now." Robbie gasped before quickly getting to his feet and rushing out of the door, Tombstone chuckled before turning back and staring at the two women in his bed. "Now, ladies, where were we?"
"You're late." He said.
On top of a rooftop, a man in a tailored blue suit leaned against a rooftop unit, smoking a cigar as he stared out at the city in front of him. He looked to his right to see a girl dressed in black shin-high boots and what appeared to be a black bodysuit that covered everything all the way up to her neck. On her hands, she wore black gloves, and a hood was fixed into the suit which covered her head. As she got closer he was able to see the black mask that covered the lower half of her face and the bag that she had slung over her shoulder.
"What happened to the other guy?" She asked curiously.
"Mouthed off to the wrong guy," The man answered. "You got the stuff?"
"Silver-fanged dog statue," She said with a roll of her eyes as she placed the bag on the ground. "I should have you know that I hate dogs. And your employer had better appreciate the level of effort I've had to put into getting this."
"The big man appreciates results," He said as he lazily tossed his cigar away. "But I'll make sure to mention it, we'll see if he gives a crap. Besides, given that you apparently take after your dear old dad, I'm sure it wasn't as hard as you were making out. Either way, you got another two jobs to do for us. Get it done, and then we're square, your debts are cleared."
"And our arrangement?" She asked.
"Don't worry, Miss Hardy, the big man keeps his word so long as you keep yours."